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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Westchester County and Greenwich, Conn., chapters of the American Red Cross are to be combined under a consolidation that officials say will strengthen the organization's emergency response capabilities and make it more efficient.

The merger, announced today, also includes Lower Hudson Valley chapter operations in Rockland, Putnam, Orange and Sullivan counties, which until now had operated as part of the New York City-based Greater New York chapter. The new chapter will be known as the American Red Cross Metro New York North chapter.

The Red Cross say the new structure allows them to better realize efficiencies, particularly in times of disasters, and will further improve their ability to provide help to those in times of need

The Greenwich Red Cross CEO is out and Mary Young has been tapped to lead the newly combined chapter.

The merger includes a 10 percent reduction of paid Red Cross staffers, who were informed earlier in the summer that they would be laid off by Sept. 1.

The Red Cross says similar consolidations and layoffs are occurring among Red Cross chapters across the country to save money in a tough econonomy.

The Red Cross wont say how many people were laid off in Greenwich, or how much money was saved.

John Ravitz, chief executive officer of the Westchester chapter, has been named chief operating officer for the region, which includes the newly merged chapters along with New York City and Long Island.

Earthquake evacuates New Haven Tennis Center

Play was stopped and the venue evacuated at the New Haven Open in Connecticut on Tuesday after an earthquake that originated in Virginia shook the stadium on the Yale campus.

The stadium was evacuated during the third game of a match between Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Elena of Russia of Russia. The stadium began shaking, and water bottles sloshed back and forth. Spectators felt three waves of shaking, and the umpire halted play.

You Just Can't Depend On Hearst Newspapers To Cover Breaking News In Greenwich

Why Aren't The Greenwich Times Local Reporting Staff Filing Reports On This Breaking Greenwich News Story?

There have been no reports of anyEarthquake damage anywhere in New Haven, Mayor John DeStefano said during a briefing at the city’s Emergency Operations Center.

By 3 p.m., the Fire Department had checked both local hospitals and given them the all clear.

Tennis at the New Haven Open at Yale was halted and the building evacuated and that building was being checked out this afternoon.

Downtown, there was widespread evacuations with virtually every highrise evacuated. City engineers and building management were checking those first.

“We can’t check every floor of every building,” said Andrew Rizzo, the city’s top building official, so his staff was relying on building management.

A primary concern, DeStefano said was the city’s aging utility system and the potential of natural gas leaks. So far, DeStefano said, there had been none.

Around downtown, evacuees with frayed nerves congregated on the New Haven Green and on street corners.

Nicole Benson and Heather Mezzacappa, both Yale University employees working in the First Niagara tower downtown, were on the 11th floor. The cubicles started swaying and then doors rattled and pictures on walls started swaying.

“We got out of there really fast,” said Mezzacappa.

Standing in groups, people continued to express disbelief.

“I said, we don’t get earthquakes in Connecticut,” said Benson. “He said, ‘We do now.’”

On Facebook, Elizabeth Reyes said: "Earthquake in New Haven?! Angelique Quinones felt the room moving and other items move. I felt my sofa moving as if I was riding a wave. Alexandra Quinones felt her bed moving, she thought someone was shaking her bed, until she noticed the fan moving also. 5.8 earthquake in Virgina, and we felt it here in New Haven. I hope we don't have any after shocks."

According to city officials, both Union Station and and Tweed-New Haven Airport were open and all the city bridges were being inspected.

One area of slight concern was the new Gateway Community College and the walkway that runs over George Street. Police closed down that block while it could be inspected. "We were up on the forth floor and it just started shaking like someone was pushing you back and forth," said Emanuel Gonzalez, a construction worker at the new Gateway Community College building

At the New Haven Open at Yale, shortly after 3 p.m. Tournament Director Anne Worcester announced that the New Haven building inspector and Fire Marshal entered the main stadium building and the engineering department may come soon to further inspect the structure.

"The U.S. Open just notified us that they they just resumed playing. Hopefully we can give you all the same news soon, she told the anxious crowd.

The city activated its “reverse 911” emergency notification system and sent out a message recorded by DeStefano. The message alerted residents that the a magnitude 5.9 earthquake had occurred and the Emergency Operations Center was standing by to take calls regarding damaged structures or utility disruptions. The mayor asked residents not to call 911 except in true cases of emergency.

Dozens of people self-evacuated from the Board of Education building at 54 Meadow St. when the quake stuck. Employees who worked on the top floors of the building said the whole structure swayed for a full minute or two, causing panic and sending people fleeing down stairwells.

Betsey Mase, who works on the eighth floor, said she has been in bigger earthquakes in California, but this one lasted longer and was more “deceiving” because it was silent.

“This was the longest one I have ever experienced. And I have been in some serious earthquakes in California,” she said.

Mase said everything started swaying back and forth, so she told another colleague to get into a safe space such a doorway and to hold on. Pat DeMaio, who works with Mase on the eighth floor, took her advice and flew to a doorway.

“We just held on!” she said.

Mase and DeMaio were hanging out in the shade along Union Avenue with dozens of others who had fled the building. Among them were first-floor health department employees Jeanette Simon and Deborah Quinones, who were still shaken up almost an hour after the quake.

“I felt it and it actually moved my chair and it moved the window and the shades were banging against the thing. That’s when I got up and left,” Simon said.

Her first thought was that a car had hit the building and caused it to shake.

Quinones heard a squeak and knew something was wrong because she felt dizzy. When she realized the floor was shaking, she decided to evacuate.

“I was not going to wait for the building to come crumbling down,” she said
Continued...

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter in northern Virginia sent tremors throughout the east coast Tuesday afternoon, including all of Connecticut.

Stories of tremors shaking and evacuating buildings and public safety officials urging caution quickly went viral on Twitter, and just about everyone from Greenwich to Danbury, from Stamford to the Valley, felt the impact.

We need more reader stories to pass along and display on our websites, so we’re asking you: Where were you when the earthquake hit? What did you feel? How did people in your building react?

Leave a comment to tell us your story and we’ll feature the best ones in a story across the Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

UPDATE #2:

THE HEARST NEWSPAPER TWITS ARE NOW SPAMMING TWITTER BEGGING FOR STORY IDEAS AS EVERY CONNECTICUT NEWS BLOG AND NEWSPAPER IS SCOOPING THEM LEFT AND RIGHT

Staff reports

Published 07:55 p.m., Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Shaken, not stirred.

The James Bond phrase aptly describes many Greenwich residents who felt the rumble of one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded on the East Coast on Tuesday afternoon.

The 5.8-magnitude, which was centered about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., shook buildings and rattled nerves up and down the Eastern Seaboard and forced the evacuations of parts of the Capitol, White House and Pentagon. Some large buildings in lower Fairfield County, including in Stamford, were also emptied following the quake, which struck at 1:51 p.m.

But while Greenwich police and fire officials said they received several calls from concerned residents wondering if there had been an earthquake, there were no calls for help, no reports of damage and no evacuations in town.....

.....Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who was in Stamford at the time of the quake, issued a statement saying the state's Emergency Operations Center was opened as a precaution, but added there were no reports of any injuries or damage anywhere in the state. The center was closed within a few hours.

The light shaking was equivalent roughly to a magnitude-2.7 quake, said Peter Boynton, deputy commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. He said state agencies were inspecting infrastructure like dams, and roads as a precaution.....

...The region has had a handful of tremors in recent decades, the most memorable in November 1988, which was centered in Canada but felt throughout the Northeast, New York and down to Maryland. Among the quakes that occurred in the past half-century or so are in March 1953 in the Stamford area, November 1968 and August 1988 near Norwich, June 1991 near New Fairfield, April 1996 in Westport and April and October 1991 and again in February 2001 in the Greenwich-Stamford area.

Another occurred just before 7 a.m. April 20, 2002. It was centered in the Adirondack Mountains near Plattsburgh, N.Y., and felt throughout southern Connecticut.Tuesday's temblor might not be the last to be felt in lower Fairfield County. As it turns out, Greenwich is on an earthquake fault line.

In July 1999, Wesleyan University researchers discovered evidence of activity in a major fault line that runs along the shoreline of Greenwich and Branford. Long believed to be dormant, the fault line is thought to be responsible for a pattern of earthquakes that have occurred in the state about every 200 years over the past 1,200 years. At the time, researchers said the pattern suggests that the state might be due for another temblor that could reach a magnitude of 5.